Summations Only

Why do you think it absurd? The depth of the sand in the Sahara isn't all that different than the thickness of the Coconino. If the northern half of Africa were to gradually subside beneath the waves then the former Sahara desert would become seafloor and gradually accumulate marine sediments.--Percy

Yet you can't show any scientific deception, self-induced or otherwise, since science has evidence and a broad consensus of interpretation that produces practical results and makes successful predictions.Aren't you ignoring that only the religious have a motivation for self-deception because reality contradicts tightly-held religious beliefs? Then there's the lack of consensus across religious groups, not to mention disagreements about which religious groups are even legitimate. And there's also the strikingly apparent incongruity of claiming legitimacy for scientific opinions that have never made any actual contributions to science, not to mention contradicting reality.--Percy

Can religious people disagree with science? Most certainly.Can religious people misrepresent religious views as science? Most certainly. Should they? It seems that many don't have a problem with it.--Percy

PaulK already replied to this in his Message 1457, but it's a point worth emphasizing. Radiocarbon dating has a limit of about 50,000 years, sometimes a little more up to maybe 60,000 years depending upon the sample and the analysis equipment, but to keep it simple we'll just assume the limit of radiocarbon dating is 50,000 years.This means that anything older than 50,000 years will date to about 50,000 years. That means a skull that is a hundred thousand years old will date to 50,000 years. A skull that is a million years old will date to 50,000 years. A skull that is a hundred million years old will date to 50,000 years.So a very important point is that anyone radiocarbon dating dinosaur fossils (minimum age: 65 million years old) is engaged in purposeful misrepresentation.This has probably been explained to you at least a dozen times over the years, so a key question is what is the sticking point for you that you keep failing to get this?If after all this explanation you still think there's something wrong with radiocarbon dating, then another question for you is why ¹⁴C is almost completely absent in all fossils in layers dated older than 50,000 years. For you no fossil can be older than about 6000 years, so there should be plenty of ¹⁴C. Where did it go?--Percy

Moving to a different method wouldn't be possible for fossils. Only fossils less than 50,000 years old can be directly dated, and only by radiocarbon dating. If the fossil is older than 50,000 years then it cannot be directly dated by any method (though as mentioned earlier, when the sample permits then there are techniques for extending the range of radiocarbon dating to as much as 60,000 years and sometimes even 75,000 years according to Wikipedia).Fossils older than 50,000 years are indirectly dated by dating the layer in which they were found. As DWise1 mentioned, sedimentary layers cannot be directly dated either because they're the eroded products of older rock of likely varied origin, so dating must rely upon volcanic deposits within the layer of basalt or ash, and magmatic intrusions can be helpful, too.It's worth mentioning luminescence dating, which can go back about 350,000 years. If an appropriate sample is available (e.g., quartz or feldspar) it can tell how long ago it was last exposed to sunlight. If you don't understand something then you don't know how reliable it is or how important it is, so ignoring it would call your conclusions into question.--Percy

But you don't have evidence for your position. Your position is notable for it's lack of evidence and for it's demands that fantasy is real. Except that others are not dealing with them. For example, concerning radiometric dating even the RATE group found no issues.And you don't even deal with the issues your own arguments raise, for example, all the issues listed in Message 1369 and Message 1379.--Percy

I like the way the Wikipedia article on the RATE project put it:

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The project's findings were published in 2005, and while they acknowledged evidence for over 500 million years of radiometric decay at today's rates, they also claimed to have discovered other evidences that pointed to a young earth. They therefore hypothesized that nuclear decay rates were accelerated by a factor of approximately one billion on the first two days of the Creation week and during the Flood.

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--Percy

The one overwhelming fact of the fossil record is that fossils increasingly differ from modern forms with increasing depth in the geologic column. This ordering cannot be the result of global flood because water is incapable of ordering anything except by size, weight, density and shape, and none of those factors explain the order of the fossil record.The geological strata and the fossils embedded therein are a record of the past. This is a belief that you share with everyone else. The difference is that you believe they are a record of events of 4500 years ago, while the evidence says that the record extends back billions of years. If the disappearance from the fossil record didn't indicate extinction, for example of the dinosaurs, then where are they today? Contrary to your claim, the disappearance of the dinosaurs from geologic layers higher than the Cretaceous really does seem to indicate extinction.Disappearance from the fossil record is a very strong (but not conclusive) indicator of extinction - I don't think any fossil species ever thought extinct has turned up alive, though new species that are members of higher taxa once thought extinct have been found. For example, the coelacanth was once thought an extinct order, but during the 20th century two species of modern coelacanth were discovered. They aren't the same species as any of the extinct ones, but they do have extinct fossil relatives in the same genus and more in the same family and even more in the same order. No fossils of the modern coelacanth species have ever been found, possibly because they evolved too recently to have been buried deeply enough to fossilize and then be uncovered through uplift and erosion, or possibly because we just haven't searched in the right place yet.See the Wikipedia article on Lazarus Taxon for a number of other examples of taxa once thought extinct. Interestingly (though a different topic), the same article has a long list of conservation species thought to have gone extinct sometime during the last couple centuries but since rediscovered. You seem to be trying to express a tautology. Significant extinction events, ones where many species simply disappear, are recorded in the fossil record at several points in time. For example, 75% of the species on Earth disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous, including the dinosaurs (except the birds). The strata themselves tell us a great deal about the environment in which they formed, and therefore what environmental pressures were present to affect adaptation. Here's a table from Sedimentary Rocks Contain Clues to Ancient Environments that describes the environments that create different types of sediments: Most sedimentary layers are lacustrine or marine, and those that are land are from lowland regions. This is because land is exposed to erosive forces that produce sediments that are transported to lower elevations and usually eventually to water, while sea and lake beds are much lower in elevation and tend to accumulate sediments on their bottoms.--Percy

Classifying fossils of past eras into species, genus, family, etc., isn't all that different from the process Linnaeus began and that we continue today with modern species. The main difference is that it will often happen with fossils that different species will be judged the same species when they are only similar. For example, tigers and lions cannot be told apart simply by examining their skeletons.That fossils of one era differ modestly from those of the era just before and the era just after is impossible to deny. As one considers different eras more and more widely separated in time, the differences in their fossils increase, also impossible to deny. It is not an illusion, but you must call it that because having no evidence you are left with no recourse but to deny the evidence before your very eyes.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

I just noticed this odd circumstance. Last Thursday night you posted this over in the Gun Control III thread in your Message 189: And that was the end of the discussion, but then the very next morning apparently here you were in this thread all full of vim and vigor, posting as many as 15 or 20 messages a day. What happened to "I have to stop posting, I'm tired, I feel rotten"? Anyway, congratulations on your remarkable recovery. This is so oddly wrong it's hard to know how to respond. Marine strata with marine fossils are found at all levels of the geological column, from top to bottom. Marine fossils are neither less common nor less numerous the higher you go in the geologic column.The distribution of fossils could not be caused by a flood. Mammals are only found in strata back to Pennsylvanian layers. Dinosaurs are only found in strata from shortly after the beginning of the Triassic up until the end of the Cretaceous. Reptiles are only found in strata back to late Carboniferous layers. Fish are only found back as far as early Silurian strata. Multicellular life is only found back as far as Archean strata. No flood, global or of any other sort you might imagine, is capable of such sorting. This is another tautology. Yes, we won't find living examples of extinct species. The sedimentary layers themselves are evidence of lengthy time periods. It takes a great deal of time for rock to erode into the sediments that are gradually transported to lower elevations and eventually usually water, and then more time for the sediments to settle.Radiometric dating confirms that the sedimentary layers represent the great ages their composition suggests. More accurately, we all believe, you included, that the sedimentary layers were deposited successively one after another. Not even you believe "it all happened at once and is over and done with." What you actually believe in is a complex sequence of events involving successive waves depositing ever higher layers upon land, and between the waves animal life would scamper out onto the mud flats to create tracks, dig burrows, create worm holes, build termite nests, etc., then when the waters receded eroded the layers just deposited and carved canyons.So we all believe the sedimentary layers were deposited over time. The question is how much time, and for the answer we look to the evidence. The sedimentary evidence says long time periods. The fossil evidence says long time periods. The pace of evolution says long time periods. The radiometric evidence says long time periods. Yes, yes, we already know what you believe. The question is what evidence can you bring to the table. What was happening in your flood that dinosaur fossils the world over appear only in strata between the Cretaceous and Triassic, inclusive? Stop it with the paradigm nonsense. Either you have evidence for what you think or you don't.We all agree the sedimentary layers took time to deposit - no one believes they were deposited instantaneously. The question is what evidence can each side bring for the time they think it took. You seem to have no evidence, just paeans to a wonderful paradigm. Coelacanth is an order, not a species, so again, I don't think any fossil species ever thought extinct has turned up alive. There is no evidence of any particular increase in the amount of evolutionary change over the past 4500 years. Just for this sentence assuming the Flood was real, you're forgetting the possibility that such fossils exist but haven't been found yet. That *could* be why, if you had any evidence for what you believe, and if what you believe wasn't contradicted by all available evidence. The modern Coelacanth species are different species, genera and families than the fossil ones, which is change beyond microevolution. The Flood didn't exist at the time of the Flood, either. It's possibly a descendant of one of the extinct species we know about, but with fossils there's no way to know for sure. They're obviously related, but it's impossible to tell whether it's an ancestor/descendant relationship. Hey, something true. Congrats! Hence the parenthesized comment "though a different topic". How the natural world actually behaves is probably your weakest area. Since you have no understanding of how the natural world works you need have no concern it will be co-opted. Assigning inappropriate labels to things names like "illusion" to the fossil order and "paradigm" to your religious views is no substitute for evidence. Describing fantasies is the opposite of describing evidence. A flood could not produce dramatic changes in fossil populations from one strata to the next, let alone produce strata. You've been provided a great many facts. Calling facts illusions doesn't make them any less facts. You know or accept very few facts about the real world. You can't rebut the facts that have been provided by merely saying things like, "That's merely the illusion of the timescale paradigm." People could as easily reply, "And your view is merely the illusion of the flood paradigm." Now what? How about examining the evidence? Again, you have a weak grasp of how reality works. You think things like sediments are no longer contributing to the geologic column, that they can't deposit on a slope, that floods sort fossils, sediments and radiometric elements all at the same time.A Mount St. Helens issue came up recently. Was that answered already? If not, the "strata" after the Mount St. Helens eruption were not actual strata, were not lithified sedimentary deposits. They were just unconsolidated mud, ash and rock resulting from pyroclastic flows. They blocked the normal flow of water which later easily eroded paths through them.--Percy

By cousins you mean that all trilobites are the same species? If so, what is your evidence that all trilobites are the same species? By "kind" do you mean species? If not, what is the definition of "kind", what does horizontal evolution within a kind mean, and what is the evidence for genomic built-in variation? What evidence are you looking at that says they aren't eras? Radiometric dating, sedimentation rates, evolutionary pace, all say they are eras of time. Yes, of course. Evolutionary change (beyond drift) is driven by environmental pressures. Species experiencing the least environmental pressures will experience the least change, if any at all, while species experiencing the greatest environmental pressures will experience the greatest change, if they don't go extinct. I was referring to adjacent eras, not adjacent strata, and I said that adjacent eras represent modest differences, at last as compared to those across long timespans. Adjacent eras are not the same thing as adjacent strata which can have unconformities between them that represent millions and millions of years. And how did a flood insure that no rabbit ever got buried with a trilobite, no pterodactyl with a bat? Are you sure they were flocking? Maybe they were traipsing. And tell us how you learned of these unknown factors about water behavior. Sure you are. You're denying radiometric dating, evolutionary change over time, the chaotic nature of floods, the way sediments form and are transported, and the way sediments settle out of water, just to mention a few. What you're actually denying is the reality paradigm. Your Flood paradigm is the illusion. Gee, I guess we disagree. How shall we settle this? Maybe with evidence? Got any?--Percy

Responding to several of your messages...

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Replying to your Message 1702 to PaulK: Most everything you say draws a response because most everything you say is in error. You do not have a paradigm. You have a fiction, dogmatically adherent to a religious book by ancient nomads, that ignores almost all evidence and often perversely distorts facts and analysis. Marine strata with marine fossils are found in all levels of the geological record, from top to bottom, but the species differ. In fact, they become increasingly different from modern forms with increasing depth in the geologic column. Water does not have the ability to sort in this way, nor by radiometric age, nor by sediment type. There wouldn't be exceptions to what you describe because what you describe doesn't exist in the real world. Marine and non-marine strata are interspersed.

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Replying to your Message 1703 to PaulK: You do not have a paradigm. You have a religious story unsupported by, indeed contradicted by, real world evidence.

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Replying to your Message 1711 to Coyote: It isn't just radiometric dating that says you're wrong. It's also fossil order, the ways sediments originate through erosional processes, sedimentation order, sedimentation rates, strata with tracks, burrows and nests, Walther's Law as a slow process requiring long time periods, unconformities representing missing millions of years of time, sea floor striping recording flips in the Earth's magnetic field, sea floor spreading rates, slope retreat rates at canyons, sharp contacts between strata.And I'm sure we're all curious to understand your process in better detail. Do I have this right:

1. The flood sweeps across the landscape stripping it bare so that all sediments are swept into the water.
2. The water recedes from the land, then sorts the sediments by type and radiometric age, and the fossils by increasing difference from modern forms.
3. The water returns to the land in the form of a long sequence of successive waves that redeposits the sediments and fossils, but only of particular types each time. There's little mixing of sediments of different types, or of fossils of different eras, and none of sediments of different radiometric ages.
4. Even though the flood had earlier swept across the land to strip the sediments from it, animals still somehow inhabit the land so that they can run out onto the mudflats between successive waves in order to create tracks, burrows, nests, etc.

No, sorry, there are no creationists who address these things. And don't you tire of constantly having to resort to, "Answers exist, I just don't have them." There is no evidence that processes in the past were any different than they are today. In fact, today we observe sedimentary processes creating the same geologic structures that we find in ancient strata. Pretending that many lines of evidence pointing in the same direction don't exist is silly. You're engaged in a multi-year performance of denial. Stubbornly refusing to make sense of evidence or acknowledge evidence or even understand how reality works is guaranteed not to work as persuasion. Perhaps you see it as a way to testify for your God, but this is a science thread. You need to weave the many lines of evidence into a consistent whole.

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Replying to your Message 1712 to Jar: I think you've got paradigm on the brain. Casting accusations of paradigm is not an answer. If you've got an interpretation of the evidence that is consistent with natural laws then let's hear it - otherwise all you're doing is posting a big fat, "I've got nothing." You're like a broken record. Crying "paradigm" is not a response. You've still got nothing. Oh, this should be good. Please explain how flowers and grasses in the same field ended up in different layers. You're just not going to stop with this paradigm nonsense, are you. There is no such thing as a Flood paradigm. You can't seem to answer any challenges, only invent names. The fossil order is not an illusion, and it isn't something you can explain as a result of the Flood. If the fossil order is an illusion then you should be able to show that it's an illusion. But you can't, because it's real.

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Hmmm, been a bit busy, and before I had a chance to post this the thread seems to have up and run away from me - I'm now about 150 messages behind. It's no longer practical to respond to each of your misstatements, so I'll just post what I've got so far and read to the end of the thread.--Percy

Couldn't resist commenting on this one. PaulK is invoking the law of superposition, the one law of Steno that you still accept. Without some kind of tectonic inversion, how could fossils in a lower strata be deposited after fossils in a higher strata? What is wrong with you that you're rejecting not just science established and accepted for hundreds of years, but even just simple common sense.There is only one fossil order represented by the actual fossils in actual geological strata. As usual when you have no argument you confound discussion by insisting on nonsense that you argue for interminably. That probably explains the 140 messages I have yet to read.--Percy

Faith, you've got to stop arguing pointlessly like this. Calling things names is not discussion. You can call our arguments mental cobwebs, and we could call your arguments (were you to make any) the same, and where would that leave us? Nowhere, because it's discussion of the evidence that counts.If you "don't know how the Flood did a lot of things" then that leaves you in an incredibly weak position. You can't remedy that weakness by refusing to discuss evidence from the other side and instead just engaging in name calling like "illusion" and "timescale paradigm" and "mental cobwebs." You're not discussing the topic, you're avoiding it.--Percy

These are just too absurd, I have to reply. Responding to a few of your messages...

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Replying to your Message 1745 to DWise1: When are you going to start? You've never offered any explanations that didn't violate at least one law of nature and usually several. But you're not focusing on any "physical facts." You're just name-calling. What "scientific effort of creationists?" If there were any science in creationism then creationists would have long since won the day. What creationists actually do is start with a conclusion then cherry pick a few facts that at least don't contradict them, then distort a few other facts, then make up a few other facts, then never explain major issues like how floods sort sediments by type and radiometric age and fossils. Like most accounts written by people, some is true, some false, some a mix, some of indeterminate veracity. Facts are established by studying the real world, and so regarding the Flood the Bible is definitely not fact.

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Replying to your Message 1746 to Tangle: Things that happen leave evidence behind. We can see the evidence of what happened in the past. Radiometric decay leaves its products behind that can be measured.Don't you think 17 years of not understanding radiometric decay is long enough, that maybe it's time to learn a little bit about what you're disregarding? You haven't even done it once, not successfully. You've made many attempts at explanations that were full of mistakes and errors and misunderstandings and omissions that were immediately pointed out, but you've never successfully explained how the Flood could explain the geology of the planet. You haven't even defined kind, let alone shown any evidence for built-in variation for kind evolution or for rapid evolution after the Flood, evidence for which is also completely lacking. To call this doing "pretty well" is pretty delusional.

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Replying to your Message 1747 to JonF: Nothing in science is provable, but the evidence says that the laws of the universe were the same in the past as they are today going back billions of years. Will you be describing any of this evidence any time soon? Or will you be continuing your pattern of half-baked attempts at describing evidence that are immediately rebutted, and then after that claiming you already proved your point? Followed by breaking off discussion, then resuming a few days or weeks later making the same arguments as if they hadn't already been rebutted.

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Replying to your Message 1749 to DWise1: And yet no field of endeavor has any problem studying the past, because what happens in the past leaves evidence behind. Even you concede this, for instance in forensics. How is a criminal leaving a fingerprint behind any different in principle from a radiometric isotope leaving daughter isotopes behind? Convincing people of lies through repetition has a long history of success in politics, but not science. You might try repeating things that are true, it would work much better.

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Replying to your Message 1750 to Jar: Like I said before, you just describe some nonsense that is instantly rebutted, then after that just claim you've proved your point. Just like what you're doing right now. Before you were born science already understood how the products of erosion are transported to low points, usually bodies of water, where sediments gradually settle out. This is just your mantra, not something you've actually demonstrated or that even has any meaning. And yet you're unable to address the evidence itself, calling the fossil order an illusion while never actually showing how this is so. You're going by a diagram of the Grand Staircase that doesn't contain that level of detail, but of course there were volcanic disturbances. It's the only way we would be able to radiometrically date. And the world is always experiencing tectonic forces and volcanism, just not everywhere all at the same time. During the period that the layers in the Grand Staircase region were being deposited there was certainly tectonic forces and volcanism at work elsewhere in the world. And yet just as huge parts of the world are flat and straight today, so was the world in the past. Nothing in science can be proved. All the evidence says that the laws of the universe were the same billions of years ago as they were in the past. And radiometric isotopes leave behind daughter isotopes.--Percy